adventures of huckleberry finn

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his life, and the most intellectural; and said if he only could see his
way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to
our children to get out; for he believed Jim would come to like it
better and better the more he got used to it. He said that in that way
it could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the
best time on record. And he said it would make us all celebrated
that had a hand in it.
In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the
brass candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter
spoon in his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and
while I got Nat's notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into
the middle of a corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along
with Nat to see how it would work, and it just worked noble; when
Jim bit into it it most mashed all his teeth out; and there warn't ever
anything could a worked better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never
let on but what it was only just a piece of rock or something like that
that's always getting into bread, you know; but after that he never
bit into nothing but what he jabbed his fork into it in three or four
places first.
And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here
comes a couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and
they kept on piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't
hardly room in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten
that lean-to door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches"
once, and keeled over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun
to groan like he was dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out
a slab of Jim's meat, and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he
was out himself and back again and shut the door, and I knowed
he'd fixed the other door too. Then he went to work on the nigger,
coaxing him and petting him, and asking him if he'd been imagining
he saw something again. He raised up, and blinked his eyes around,
and says: